China is stoking a controversy in order to influence Taiwan’s election

ALICE OU DOES not mince words when criticising education officials in Taiwan. She has accused them of turning young people into “moral dwarves and historical idiots”. She says the government’s actions amount to “self-castration”. Ms Ou, a Chinese-literature teacher at the prestigious Taipei First Girls’ High School, is angry that the state has reduced the number of recommended classical Chinese texts in the high-school curriculum. She believes this is an effort to “de-sinicise” students.

Ms Ou’s opinion, first aired at a press conference in early December, went viral. It quickly became part of a narrative promoted by the Chinese government and Taiwan’s opposition parties. Both accuse Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which takes a defiant stance towards China, of trying to stamp out Chinese culture. The messaging comes as Taiwan prepares for a presidential election on January 13th. The outcome could lead to a big change in Taiwan’s posture towards China, which sees the island as part of its territory.

In the two weeks after Ms Ou’s moment in the spotlight, China’s state-affiliated media and social-media accounts published more than 200 articles about her comments, according to the Taiwan Information Environment Research Centre. “Hear the cry of sorrow and anger from Taiwan’s education sector,” said Xinhua, China’s state news agency, in an indicative piece. Ma Ying-jeou, a former Taiwanese president and elder statesman in the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party, praised Ms Ou’s “moral courage”.

The outrage, though, is misleading—and a little late. The high-school curriculum guidelines that are under scrutiny were introduced in 2019. They did not restrict the teaching of classical Chinese. But they did reduce the required amount of it in high-school Chinese-language textbooks. A list of suggested readings on the subject was cut in half and made more diverse, with female and Taiwanese writers included. This was part of a broader reform effort, begun in the 1990s, that aimed to give teachers and schools more freedom to shape their syllabuses, says Lan Wei-ying, an education expert. Many teachers say the changes have increased their workload, yet they remain broadly supportive of the guidelines. Few talk of de-sinicisation.

Ms Ou stands by her criticism. “Taiwanese culture is Chinese culture,” she says, noting that Taiwan preserved this shared heritage in its “purest form” while it was being destroyed on the mainland during the Cultural Revolution. She accuses the DPP of undermining young people’s confidence in their culture: “They will think everything about us is backwards, and that our values must come from the West.” That chimes with Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, the latest instalment of the Chinese leader’s philosophy. It preaches “cultural self-confidence” and aims to diminish Western influences.

Ms Ou admits that she is speaking up now because of the coming election, in the hope of drawing more attention to her cause. She doesn’t mind if China’s Communist Party or opposition candidates in Taiwan make hay of her comments, as long as it leads to changes in the curriculum. She shrugs off questions about China’s propaganda efforts or Taiwan’s democracy coming under threat. Political systems come and go with the tides of history, she says, and laobaixing, common folk, have no control over that. “What we can hold on to is our culture. As for political systems, just go with the flow.”

Such views are not uncommon among older conservative voters who were raised during the KMT’s authoritarian rule from 1949 to 1987. The party, which lost China’s civil war, continued to instil a sense of Chinese identity in the island’s residents. But for years the mood has been shifting. Today less than 3% of Taiwanese people identify as only Chinese, while about 30% identify as both Chinese and Taiwanese. More than 60% say they are only Taiwanese. So the messaging around Ms Ou will probably have a limited impact on the election. At most it may help to shore up the KMT’s nationalist base.

China may be looking beyond the vote. Though Mr Xi says he aims for peaceful unification, the Communist Party’s propaganda looks like justification for a possible invasion. It portrays the DPP as a radical separatist group that is imposing an anti-China agenda on Taiwan against the wishes of its people. Should China move in, it wants to be seen as a liberator, not an invader. If it can use Taiwanese voices to paint that picture, all the better. ■